Speaking in an interview via phone with Fox News Digital on the evening of Tuesday, July 16, country star Lee Greenwood spoke about the opportunity to perform his classic, beloved “God Bless the USA” song at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Greenwood’s performance occurred on Monday night, July 15.
Greenwood, as background, released in 1984, with the song becoming popular during the First Gulf War and then again in the wake of 9/11 and the early days of the War on Terror. As a Trump ally, Greenwood’s song has remained popular and frequently sung alongside Trump at his rallies and events. such as the 2024 convention.
In any case, Greenwood, whose RNC appearance was his sixth, speaking about the song, which just hit its 40th anniversary, said, “It’s easy to say that I’ve done this before.” Continuing, he spoke about the Reagan roots of the song, saying, “It’s also the 40th anniversary of the Republican Party using ‘God Bless the USA’ with Ronald Reagan at the ’84 RNC.” He added that what’s currently going on is new, telling Fox News Digital, “But there were a lot of things that were different last night.”
Continuing, speaking about what matters in the current moment, Greenwood noted the importance of the attempted assassination of former President Trump. He said, “The most important of all, is that we recognize that the assassination attempt on the president’s life would have changed the entire world for us if President Trump had been killed.”
He further explained how the RNC went along with his request to have his longtime band that toured for the USO alongside him. He said, “The second thing is, when I performed at the request of the president, the band that was playing actually worked for me for 10 years — so they’re very familiar with my music. They did most of my USO tours.”
Greenwood then said that, on the opening night of the convention, “which I was not advertised to be at, I wanted to make sure that I was able to excite, incite and electrify the room at the RNC.” He continued, saying, “when the president walked into the room, full of power, and then had his VP choice [Sen. JD Vance] next to him and stood there with his family all around him, that’s when I began to sing — which has happened about a dozen times so far in the campaign.”
Then, speaking about Trump himself, Greenwood said, “He’s a warrior. He’s courageous. He’s defiant. And, as he said in his tweet, he’s not going to let this change his scheduling or the events of the campaign.” He added, “We’re just fortunate that God had an angel looking out for him and protecting him at that moment, so that he would turn his head and avoid a killer shot.” He then said, “we’re very proud of him for bouncing back and coming to the RNC on Monday night, when he wasn’t expected until later in the week.”
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Greenwood also spoke about how the RNC was promising in that there were more young people there than might be expected, saying, “I was proud to see a very energized crowd.” He continued, “As I perused the room, I saw lots of 30-year-olds, 40-year-olds — younger people who were energized not just about being there but about the process of electing a president.”
Watch Trump walk in as Greenwood performed at the RNC here:
Featured image credit: Featured image credit: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lee_Greenwood_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg